**Setting: A Storm-Wracked Night in Ancient Ruins
The heavens were torn asunder. Lightning scarred the sky, and thunder roared like a wounded beast. Within the crumbling skeleton of an ancient structure, a microcosm of the storm raged—on one side, flames clawed hungrily at the stone, while on the other, torrential rain and runoff fought a desperate, losing battle. It was a perfect, terrible painting of two primal forces at war.
At its center stood a young man in red robes, his sword a sliver of cold light in the chaotic dark. His face, illuminated in a sudden flash, was a mask of agony, his eyes pools of a pain so profound it seemed to swallow the storm itself. With a cry that was torn from the depths of his soul, he lunged forward. The blade found its mark, sinking deep into the abdomen of the young man before him—Neer, his blue robes darkening instantly.
Agni (his voice a shattered whisper, trembling with the weight of the world):
"Forgive me...Neer. There was no other path... no other way to end this. Please... forgive me."
Neer crumpled, his body folding to its knees on the wet stone. Tears carved clean paths through the rain on his face, but his lips, against all reason, curved into a faint, heartbreaking smile. Each breath was a shallow, struggling thing.
Neer (his voice soft, almost carried away by the wind):
"If this moment...this ending... was my destiny... then I am blessed that it is you who holds its pen, Agni. I carry no regrets... only a single, lingering ache... that I could never speak the words I held... or perhaps... you could never hear them."
A shuddering breath escaped him. "But there is peace in this. To be with you... at the end... Even in the death you have given me... I will find a way to live on... inside you. You won't... you won't be able to forget me... will you, Agni?"
Agni looked down, his gaze locked with Neer's. Words were ash in his mouth, impossible to form. He watched, helpless, as the light in Neer's stormy eyes slowly stilled, the final breath leaving his body in a soft sigh. The body in his arms grew heavy, and cold, and terribly, irrevocably still.
Agni gazed into Neer's eyes, unable to speak. Neer's breathing stopped, and his body grew still.
Suddenly, Agni felt a strange warmth spreading from the sword into his hands.
Neer's body began to glow with a soft blue light, and the rain around them froze mid-air.
A voice echoed—not from Neer, but from everywhere at once:
"You think this is the end, Agni? This is only the beginning of the prophecy."
Agni stepped back in shock as Neer's eyes snapped open—now glowing with an unearthly blue fire.
Neer (in a voice that was not his own): "We will meet again… in another life, in another form. But next time, I will not be the one dying."